Well, considering Dread was a project originating from the Space Pirates (according to the scan - that may have been a teaser - in Metroid Prime 3 in a Space Pirate base), it's quite possible it could be Dread. I'd love to hope so anyway, a new 2D entry in the Metroid series would be immense.
Still, playing as pirates doesn't sound as fun, but who am I to judge before we know a thing about this game?

EDIT:
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it must be Dread. It would make perfect sense considering the aforementioned teaser in Metroid Prime 3 and the fact this information coincides with the release of Metroid Prime on Wii.
Here's the scan in the Space Pirates' base as a reminder:'Experiment status report update: Metroid project 'Dread' is nearing the final stages of completion.'

Kinda funny and creepy... I remember Bob (Bob's Game developer) saying he "spoke to the aliens" and that they told him stuff about Nintendo... about Metroid Dread coming out this year, and how he wanted to spoil the surprise for us to piss of Reggie. (Something along those lines)

Plus, playing as the Space Pirates sounds fun, like playing as Halo's the Arbiter. Perhaps an RTS, like EndWar?

Click to expand...

Metroid without Samus is like Yugioh without Yugioh though...

...oh wait. >_>

Click to expand...

nobody said it would be without samus though. You can play as a Ridley's right hand man pirate and explore a new world in hopes of furthering pirate control only to find Samus at that same planet. You then have a race to whoever can reach a new breed of metroid in the center of the planet while facing off against Samus three times through out the game. Three is always the magic number in video games.